Kirsten Dunst & Jesse Plemons Set For ‘Fargo’ Second Installment On FX

FX has started to build the cast for the second installment of Fargo, its miniseries franchise based on the cult Coen brothers movie. Kirsten Dunst and Breaking Bad’s Jesse Plemons are the first actors to close deals for co-starring roles in Fargo’s 10-episode new chapter, is set in 1979 in Sioux Falls, SD and Luverne, MN, where a young State Police Officer Lou Solverson, recently back from Vietnam, will tackle an all new “true crime” case.

Dunst will play Peggy Blomquist, a small-town beautician with big city dreams who is trying to figure out who she really is and what she really wants as she struggles with traditional societal expectations. She shares her home with her husband Ed (Plemons), a butcher’s assistant, who wants to be supportive of his wife’s self-discovery, even if he doesn’t quite understand it.

Noah Hawley, writer-showrunner of the Emmy-winning first installment, is back and will executive produce with Joel & Ethan Coen, Warren Littlefield and John Cameron for MGM Television and FX Productions. Production will begin in Calgary in January 2015 for premiere next fall.

The first installment of Fargo was toplined by Billy Bob Thornton. In July, FX boss John Landgraf argued that the first season needed a movie star like Thornton, who had worked with the Coen brothers before, to “sanction the quality of Noah Hawley’s material.” Now that people know the tone, style and quality of the show, “it would be nice to have a movie star in the second cycle, but I don’t think it’s necessary,” Landgraf said, noting that newcomer Allison Tolman “brought as much to Fargo’s first installment as Billy Bob Thornton did.”

Dunst, repped by UTA and Management 360, can next be seen in Warner Bros’ Midnight Special. Friday Night Lights and Breaking Bad alum Plemons recently finished filming Scott Cooper’s Black Mass and Stephen Frears’ Untitled Cycling Film. Currently seen in the Tommy Lee Jones-directed film The Homesman, he is repped by TalentWorks and David Matlof.